


Whatever it takes

by nanisorero (miriam_lee)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miriam_lee/pseuds/nanisorero
Summary: A pre-V3 SaiOuma conspiracy theory.Both know each other in the real world; one adores the game, the other hates it. After finding out about Shuuichi's application for DR53, Ouma decides to take everything into his own hands and act.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to @shuusaibot for sharing their pre/post V3 headcanons on twitter. Without those, I probably wouldn't have given it all as much thought as I have.

After hesitantly looking at the doorbell button for about a minute, Ouma sighed and started shuffling in the pocket of his school uniform. He knew well there was no point in even trying to buzz.

Having found the key, he opened the door and stepped inside.

“He-ey, it’s me. You’re home?”

A dark and tiny apartment remained quiet, but Kokichi, as if used to it, took off his shoes anyway and went into the room.

If not for a dim monitor on the desk in the far corner, it would’ve been pitch black. A person sitting in the chair in front of it didn’t help much either since they were partially blotting out the only source of light.

“Forget I asked. You'd never go outside, right?”

The person didn’t respond. Despite that, Kokichi came up to the desk, put a plastic bag from a convenience store on it and, even though he knew exactly what he’d see, glanced at the screen.

“Which season is it?” Ouma asked with a half-hearted interest.

“Twenty-seventh.”

“The one where the two last survivors committed double suicide?”

The person finally looked away from the monitor and faced Kokichi, their lips curling in a weird smile.

“Yea. One of my favorite finales.”

Ouma kept looking at Shuuichi even when the boy turned his gaze back to the screen.

He knew he should feel disgusted. He hated the show. Despised the very idea that _this_ was the world’s understanding of entertainment. He couldn’t stand the way it captivated his friend to the point of obsession and was gradually becoming his sole reason to live. Saihara’s eyes only lightened up when they were locked on the screen; at all other times they were just empty holes in a numb body that merely existed in this room.

Ouma hated the show, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to hate Shuuichi.

 “You’re watching it on mute?” he asked after spotting headphones on the other side of the desk.

“My ears hurt,” Saihara replied, his voice hoarse from not talking much or often. “And I remember all the lines anyway.”

“Did you just _brag_ about it?”

“You recalled the finale the very moment I told you which season it is,” Shuuichi retorted still facing the monitor.

“As if it’s not you who I learned it from,” Kokichi chuckled. He hopped on the right side of the desk and reached for the plastic bag. “I brought some cup ramen and rice balls. You hungry?”

“Did you steal those again?”

Ouma blinked.

“You’re watching people kill each other irl. You’re seriously gonna lecture me on stealing??”

Shuuichi was either too involved in spme gruesome execution or rationally chose not to talk back.

“In the end, everyone’s just doing whatever keeps their blood pumping,” Kokichi shrugged. “But I don’t get it: how is it so many people can’t see there’re a million ways to have fun, other than drool over organized mass murders, huh?” He took out two packs of rice balls and shoved one of them to his friend’s side. “You used to see those other ways, too, y’know.”

With a quiet sigh, Shuuichi paused the video and moved the keyboard closer to the monitor so that they could have more space on the desk for their late lunch. As he began to unpack the rice ball, he saw Ouma’s pleased smile out of the corner of his eye.

“If you wanna watch the 53rd season airing, you better eat even when I’m not here. You look horrible enough to pass out any minute, and I’m not so sure they have TVs in intensive care units,” Kokichi smirked. “And yep, I’ll sure as hell call for an ambulance, so save your ‘leave me be’s and ‘just let me die’s for nurses. ..Hey, since when do you have a pen girlfriend?”

When Ouma’s attention suddenly switched to a bright pink envelope that was peeping out from under the keyboard, Saihara had hardly any time to react. The moment he thought about reaching for the letter he had so carelessly exposed, Kokichi already snatched it. With a big smile on his face, Ouma took the paper out of the envelope and started reading the contents aloud.

“Dear Saihara Shuuichi-san, we are pleased to inform you that your application was approved by our committee and you are invited to the first round of auditioning for the… fifty third season of…”

Kokichi went silent and just blankly stared at the paper before his eyes. After a few moments he glanced at the sender line on the envelope to confirm his fears, then shifted his gaze back to the letter. All without saying a word.

Shuuichi primed his lips and casted eyes down.

“..What the _hell_  is this?” Ouma finally asked in a dry voice, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his bangs. “Although, y’know-”

Again, before Saihara even thought of doing anything, Kokichi teared both the letter and the envelop to shreds, which he then scattered on the floor.

“I don’t even care what it was.”

“..I’ve got an email copy,” Shuuichi muttered to make it clear that a torn letter hardly changed anything.

As if Ouma didn’t know that himself.

“So you kept this as some kind of a pathetic trophy?!” he slammed his right hand on the desk. “Or did you do this on purpose, cause this is the only way you can tell your best and only friend you’ve applied for that sick killing game?!”

Biting his lower lip, Saihara didn’t respond. He could hear Kokichi’s heavy breathing and saw the fingers of his right hand tremble. From shock or anger – he couldn’t tell.

The next second he felt Ouma grab him by the collar of his shirt, forcing to look him straight into the eyes.

“Do you love that show so much you’re willing to put your own life on the line?” Kokichi hissed. “To kill other innocent people like you just so that those creeps could get their viewer ratings?!”

Even though he was some two-three inches away from Ouma’s face, Shuuichi still managed to avert his eyes.

“..All of them _will_ be like me. If they apply, they.. want the same thing I want, so-…”

“To die while the entire world is jerking off to it, is that what you _want_?!” Kokichi’s fingers dug into the shirt, as he was trying to shake some sense into Saihara. “What’s fucking _wrong_ with you?!”

After almost a minute of tensed silence, Shuuichi let out a quiet sigh and closed his eyes.

“You already know that it’s _you_ there’s something wrong with, Kokichi,” he said with a soft yet bitter smile on his lips. “No one but you hates the game. No one thinks it’s wrong. Otherwise, it wouldn’t exist in the first place. And I.. honestly didn’t know how to tell you I’d applied. I was sure that my classmates, teachers and parents – they’d all say they’re proud of me, but you-..”

“What ‘pride’ are you talking about?!” Ouma cut him off half-sentence. “What should I feel this pride in exactly? You being suicidal or you being a murderer?!” His eyes were glowing with anger. “No matter how twisted this world is, no matter what everyone says – it’s wrong. It’s sick. And it’s _not_ entertainment. It’s real people’s real lives, and they all get thrown out like some kind of trash.” Gritting his teeth, Kokichi was very obviously on the verge of tears. “And it’s _your_ life that will be thrown out this time. I’m going to lose my friend to the bastards who stink of that bloody money. So _what should I be proud of_ here, huh?”

The longer Saihara looked away and kept silent, the more frustrated Ouma felt.

He couldn’t deny Shuuichi’s words completely. In the eyes of the vast majority he himself was in the wrong. ‘Life’s too dull, so why take it seriously’ – that was the motto in the world, where life was so worry- and trouble-free that it completely lost its value. Everyone’s wellbeing was regulated to such an extent that nobody had to make any important decisions, take any risks or do whatever else that could make them feel alive. Some good half of the nation just existed the same way Shuuichi did; the other half mindlessly functioned in accordance to some old patterns without giving them a second thought.

Kokichi knew there were others, who could fight boredom without giving in to this mess, just like he could. Like Saihara could, too, about a year ago. But in the end, the society usually got back at the rare exceptions, and many couldn’t stand the resentment they had to face. Even if they spoke up, nothing would’ve changed. So even those few gradually chose to just bend and blend in.

That’s just how twisted it all was.

“..Am I that boring to you?” Ouma asked, his words now quiet and steeped in pain.

Saihara felt the grip on his shirt growing weaker until Kokichi completely let go of it.

“Am I that boring, you want to leave me behind and join the game I hate more than anything else in the world? Do you enjoy thinking I’ll watch you get killed or executed and won’t be able to do anything about it? That I’ll just helplessly scream in the monitor knowing you won’t even hear me?”

“No, I-.. It’s not you, it’s just-…” Shuuichi realized he didn’t really know how to finish the sentence to make Kokichi feel better. There was _nothing_ that could make Ouma feel better, not after what he had done.

Saihara closed his eyes.

“…It’s just how things in this world are, I guess.”

“..You guess, huh?”

There was a long and heavy silence before Shuuichi heard Ouma get down from the table and make his way out of the room.

“Then _I_ guess I’ll change how these things are,” Kokichi said in a flat voice. “I’ll do whatever it takes to finally whip this world into shape.”

While Saihara was trying to catch up with what Ouma had just said, Kokichi was already in the hall, putting his shoes back on.

The moment he shut the door from the outside, he could swear he heard Shuuichi’s muffled and worried voice calling out his name. But as he headed for the stairs of the living block, his friend never opened the door to call him back again.

 

***

 

“Please state your name and the reason behind your application for the 53rd season of Danganronpa.”

“Eeh? Am I just going to talk to a camera here??”

“This is a real-time two-way communication.”

“Um, but you guys aren’t showing up. That’s not fair, y’know.”

“Please state your name and the reason for coming to this audition,” the distorted artificial voice coming from the speakers most obviously sighed.

“Ouma Kokichi. As for the reason..” he paused before innocently grinning into the camera. “Who knows? Maybe because my sick in the head best friend applied and I need to make sure he survives? Or because I wanna destroy this messed up game from within? Maybe both? Or maybe neither.”

A long silence that followed was exactly what he aimed at.

“Let’s rephrase it. What do you expect to gain by becoming a part of the game?”

“Is it where I’m supposed to say some stuff like ‘fame’, ‘money’ or ‘I-just-wanna-kill-people-mwahaha’?” Perfectly collected, Kokichi was inspecting the fingernails on his left hand. “I know that you guys give a huge paycheck to anyone regardless. But I don’t need any of your filthy money.”

The person behind the distorted voice remained silent for about a minute. Ouma knew that they must have noticed how he was deliberately turning the tables and taking this entire audition into his own hands. Still, they were more than capable of calling the audition off and showing him to the door, if they wished so.

“What is it that you need, then?”

Seeing, how he succeeded in piquing his interviewer’s curiosity, Ouma sneered and turned a sharp look into the camera lens.

“My memories. I don’t know how you guys do it, but you brainwash everyone before you let them participate. I’m only playing this game with my memories untouched.”

“I’m sorry, but this is against our primary-...”

“Rules, huh? Wait, wasn’t this brainwashing originally meant to create, like, crazy, quirky personalities?” Kokichi mused while scratching his cheek. “Those that would keep viewers on the edge of their seats and make them obsessed with learning what’s on that psycho’s mind? Aren’t I doing the same thing to you here, right now, without any brainwashing?”

The voice went silent and that certainly was a good sign.

“Besides, I’ve heard your ratings aren’t that impressive lately,” Ouma pressed on. “I mean, I totally get it. After so many seasons, your writers are all outta steam and have been cranking out these 16 character types for the past 5 games or so. The audience’s getting bored even from _you,_ the biggest supplier of ‘entertainment’ in the world,” he scoffed. “If you leave me my memories, I’ll make sure the 53 rd game will be your largest hit for many years to go. Your ratings will sky rocket and finally crack the record set by the initial two seasons.”

After another minute of silence, the interviewer replied.

“We're always in charge of creating a backstory for every participant.”

Kokichi shrugged it off.

“I’ll play along with whatever you baste up. Just make sure it suits me well.”

“Our writers may indeed have some troubles with inspiration, but they _are_ professionals,” a note of insult was clearly heard even in an artificial voice.

“Ooh, so you’re one of them,” Ouma hummed, not planning to apologize any time soon. “Anyway, we have a deal?”

“You’ll be under strict supervision during the entire game. Any means of disclosing of the information that involves the outside world or previous installments of the franchise are completely prohibited and will entail conse-...”

“You may put that tick in the ‘I agree’ box,” Kokichi cut them short with a bored look. “Can I go now?”

“One last question. Those reasons for participating you’ve mentioned at the very beginning. The one about destroying the show, in particular.”

“Yep, what about it?”

The last pause was the longest of all.

“..Are you perhaps seriously hoping to pull off such a scheme?”

For a second or two Ouma’s expression was unreadable, but then he just gave the camera another one of his grins.

“Neehehe, maybe? Or maybe not? I’m a hu-uge liar after all, did I forget to warn you about it?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this one headcanon has snowballed into a multi-chapter something in my head. And since I want to delve into Ouma and Saihara's pre-v3 relationship, I needed this flashback.  
> The whole thing should get a lot more angsty and shippy along the way and there'll be at least two cameos of other v3 characters, so.. I just hope I can handle it all properly.

“Yaay, look at this score! Guess I’m gonna set the best record in here!

Keeping his eyes on the playfield of the old, mechanical pinball machine, Ouma didn’t limit himself in emotional exclamations and restless movements. Other visitors of the pachinko parlor could hardly ignore his excited voice and eventually started abandoning their own places only to gather around the loud junior high school student and watch him play.

“Huh? And I thought this was ‘The Demonic Pinball Machine’? Y’know, the one that cleared out more than twenty people in the last two weeks?”

He didn’t even straighten his back when the ball began to fall down. Eventually, it hit one of the flippers and Kokichi sent it back into the playfield.

“Geez, I’m disappointed,” he sighed.

The crowd behind him knew well about the notorious pinball machine. Most of them had miserably lost to it before and didn’t intend to bet their money on it again in the nearest future. When half an hour ago Ouma came up to the machine, some of the visitors just smirked but didn’t stop him from playing. Not that they could have changed his mind anyway.

Thirty minutes later, to the surprise of the entire parlor, Kokichi was beating the game without even breaking a sweat.

“Hey, another digit? Maan, I wish this scoreboard had dots in between or something. How much’s that already?”

“More than 1 million, kid!” some person cried out.

“Yeah, go for 2 million now! Show this junk heap how it's done!”

The next moment the spectators had to hold their breath, since the ball was rolling down again. And also again, unlike everyone else, Ouma was totally undisturbed. He simply leaned to the side and threw his head back.

“Boooring,” he drawled and, after the ball hit one of the flippers, sent it upwards. “Why is it so easy to beat, damn?”

“Because you’re cheating,” stated someone’s collected voice in the crowd.

Immediately, everyone turned their heads to a boy with dark blueish hair under a black hat with a visor.

“Oh?” His eyes still glued to the playfield and hands on the controls, Kokichi didn’t sound anxious or angry. If anything, he was intrigued. “And how am I doing that, right in front of all these people?”

The boy was surprised but not intimidated by Ouma’s reaction and started to elaborate.

“You’re making it look like you’re just restless. But you purposefully sway to the left or right when the ball is going for the drain. It changes the trajectory and hits the flipper on the side you were leaning to.”

“Bullshit, kid. He’s just jealous!” one of the supporters yelled.

“Yeah, ignore him.”

“Don’t get distracted!”

As if to spite the crowd and prove the proposed theory at the same time, Kokichi leaned to the right and waited until the ball landed on the right flipper. But instead of pushing it back to the field, he just let the ball roll down the drain. The scoreboard showed ‘Game over’ and ‘New record’, and the spectators let out a collective sigh of disappointment.

Ouma, who looked like he couldn't care less about both the crowd and the game anymore, rushed up to the boy in a hat.

“So, how do you think I was doing that?” he smiled. “You aren’t gonna say I’m some psychic or something, right? What’s my trick? Huh?”

Seeing someone be that eager to have their lie uncovered in the presence of so many people, the boy blinked, yet Kokichi’s smirk didn’t disappear. With a quiet sigh, he extended his hand, placed it on a kangaroo pocket on Ouma’s white sweatshirt and took out a slim metal plate the size of a credit card.

“It’s a magnet, isn’t it?” the boy asked, looking straight at Kokichi’s face from under the hat’s visor.

Even if he had wanted to, Ouma couldn’t have hidden the delight: his purple eyes were literally sparkling.

“Woooow! Who knew there’d actually be someone to see through it so quickly?” Without giving a direct answer, he grinned. “Guess you’ve caught me, Mr. Detective!”

“..Saihara Shuuichi,” the boy mumbled, willing not as much to introduce himself as to avoid being addressed in the manner he just was.

Meanwhile, those who heard their conversation began voicing and spreading clear complaint and disapproval.

“So he was cheating after all?!”

“Did someone call for security?”

“He’d better not get that prize money, or I swear, I-”

“Aa-ah. When you’re on top of the world they’re all supportive, but you lose – and they turn their backs on you,” Kokichi’s face expressed nothing but profound contempt for predictability. Then, after seeing somebody behind Shuuichi’s back, he lightened up again. “Oh, _now_ it’s getting interesting…”

Saihara turned around and froze at the sight of two sturdy men in black suits heading their way.

When the security guards came up to Ouma, the one who was wearing sunshades roared:

“Our Boss wants to have a chat with ya, boy.”

Not threatened in the least, Kokichi enthusiastically raised an eyebrow.

“And your boss is ‘someone I’d better not mess with’, I hope?”

The other guard, completely bald, grabbed Ouma by the shoulder, making his face wrinkle in pain for a second.

“Kids ain’t afraid of nothing, huh?? We’ll check that out.”

“Hey, you’re so angry just cuz I was cheating?” Kokichi asked, his face childishly innocent. “But if I cheat _cheating_ , isn’t it actually, like, the real deal? I mean, from what I heard, that thing seemed pretty rigged to me.”

Ouma focused his gaze on Shuuichi’s greyish eyes, which were perfectly visible to him thanks to a 5-inch height difference. Uncertain, if this was some sort of a hint or not, Saihara furrowed his brow and looked at the metal plate in his hand.

“Shut your trap, brat, and move!” the sunshades guard pushed Kokichi to the spiral stairs leading below. “You can talk about whatever you want after you see the Boss.”

“If you have a working jaw after seeing him, that is.”

“Geez, sounds scary!” Ouma’s face looked frightened, but with all his emotions changing so rapidly there was no telling he actually felt that fear. He looked around and pitched his voice higher to address everyone in the parlor: “Hey, y’all hear that a middle school student is gonna be beaten up and aren’t doing anything? Seriously?!”

The crowd was indeed trying to make it look like nothing was even happening, and the guard, who was still squeezing Kokichi’s shoulder, leaned and sneered in his ear.

“No one cares about anyone in this world anymore, kid. I could just wring your neck right here and won’t hear _a peep_ from anyone. Now, move.”

“W-wait a minute!”

Saihara, who raised his voice to stop the guards, became the center of everyone’s attention for the second time in less than ten minutes.

“Yup, wait! You haven’t given him his reward yet!”

“Th-that’s not-..” baffled by Ouma’s remark, Shuuichi tried to go on with his explanation, but was cut short again.

“He’s the one who uncovered my trick, not you, idiots!”

The bald guard turned to Saihara and bellowed:

“If you want money, then get out! You don’t even look like you’re 16.”

“Huuh? Minors gambling is an okay, but minors getting a well-deserved reward is a no-go? Really now?”

“I don’t need any rewards!” Shuuichi raised his voice. “That machine _was_ rigged from the very start.”

The annoyed guard let go of Kokichi’s shoulder and made a step toward Saihara.

“Oh, so now it’s your jaw flapping, yeah??”

“Two cents from me to you: don’t ask him if he can crack your trick, cuz he _can_ ,” Ouma addressed the guard from behind. “Believe me, I’d know.”

With all the continuous taunting, the bald guard finally snapped.

“Alright, c’mon!” he shouted at Shuuichi. “If you’ve got anythin’ to say, than tell us how that shit coulda been rigged! And if you’ve got nothin’, I think you can join that one midget in his chat with the Boss!”

Nervous to the point he could feel his palms sweating, Saihara glanced at Kokichi only to get an encouraging wink from him. Shuuichi let out a quiet sigh, then teared a pin off his own black school uniform, raised the metal plate he had taken from Ouma, and brought the two objects together.

Nothing happened.

“This plate is not a magnet,” he explained to both the guards and the crowd. “It’s soft iron, which can only _become_ a magnet in a highly electromagnetic field.”

Saihara made a few steps to the side and brought his pin and the metal plate together while holding them above the pinball machine. The two glued to each other immediately.

“The machine is influenced by this field. Most likely, it makes the ball head for the drain a lot more often than on regular machines. With this plate, he-..”

“Ou-ma,” Kokichi nonchalantly butted in with a self-introduction.

“-..Ouma-kun was just turning the tables. His trick would’ve been impossible without the already existing one. He couldn’t get rid of the electromagnetic influence, which put him at a disadvantage, so he came up with a way to use it for his own benefit instead.”

The two guards were silently grinding their teeth and the crowd didn’t need any better confirmation.

“Hey, so the junk heap took all my money because of that??”

“Is it a fucking joke?!”

“Give me my 500,000 yen back!”

After one of the visitors kicked a slot machine out of frustration, others followed the example. Very soon, the crowd turned into an angry and absolutely uncontrollable mob.

“Nee-hehe, that’s even better than I expected!”

While the two guards were busy restraining the sudden uproar, Ouma used his chance to sneak up to Shuuichi, grabbed him by the hand and hurried towards the front door.

Once they were outside, recovering their breath in a street alley, Saihara gave Kokichi a serious and confused look.

“Did you.. plan all this?”

Ouma raised an eyebrow and touched his left cheek with an index finger.

“Hmm? Can someone plan to be uncovered and saved by a random stranger?”

Although he didn’t deny that this was hardly possible, Saihara still wasn’t convinced. To him, Kokichi came across as a person who could bend the ‘impossible’ to his own will.

“Hey, but that part where you explained the trick was sooo cool!” Kokichi’s eyes went sparkling again. “I’m totes impressed, Mr. Detective!”

Shuuichi closed his eyes and sighed.

“It’s Saihara,” he reminded. “And I didn’t really do any-..”

“Oh, c’mon! I woulda been losing my teeth right now if not for you,” Ouma gave him a gentle pat on the back. “Thanks a bunch, Saihara-chan!”

Trying not to think about his new name and whether it sounded better than the previous one, Shuuichi scratched the back of his head.

“But you.. didn’t even get any money in the end.”

“Eeeh? Who cares about it!” Kokichi shrugged. “Money wasn’t my objective anyway.”

No matter what he heard in response to his own words, Shuuichi just couldn’t follow Ouma’s train of thoughts.

“..What _was_ your objective then, Ouma-kun?” he asked, looking right into the bright purple eyes.

The next moment Kokichi shut them and grinned.

“Fun, of course! And thanks to a certain smartass detective, I had lots. What about you?”

“..Huh?” this time Saihara raised an eyebrow, unsure about what the question implied.

Ouma stepped right up to Shuuichi and pushed the visor of his hat up.

“Did _you_ have fun busting those idiots, Saihara-chan?”

Caught completely off guard, Shuuichi stared down at Ouma’s warm and innocent smile. He still remembered the cold nervous sweat in his palms, as well as the sudden confidence that filled his voice once he began explaining the trick.

He had no idea where that confidence even came from. What he knew for sure was that he had never felt _that great_ before.

“Y-yea,” he smiled back at last, “I think I did. Somehow.”

***

Ouma lazily opened his eyes and squinted at his tattered laptop; a ‘data transfer complete’ window was blinking right in the middle of the screen. Still sleepy, Kokichi clicked on the new folder on the desktop and scrolled down a long list of all the documents he had requested to snatch from a certain database.

He stretched his arms to wake his body up after an uncomfortable nap in the chair and shook his head, trying to chase away the 3-year-old memories he just saw in his dream. Wistfulness and a dull pain in his chest were still lingering, but Ouma knew he couldn’t give in to any of those.

“Time to look into all your tricks, bastards, ” he muttered to himself and forced a smirk. “Cuz I never play a rigged game by the rules, y’know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it sure took me long, hah. No excuses. Still, thank you everyone, who showed their support with kudos and comments~ It definitely sent me flying right into the draft document.  
> I wanted to take this idea further and show certain in-game moments from Ouma's perspective, but.. I think I'll stop here. At least with this work and for now.  
> (Also, look out for another flashback ahead.)

The address he had found in the database files along with other useful information seemed to be correct. Ouma checked up the name on his phone, then looked at the sign plate on the fence of a two-story house. Both had the same ‘Amami’ characters.

After he buzzed the door phone on the gate, he had to wait for almost 5 beeps before hearing someone pick up the receiver.

“..Who’s that and what do you need.”

The disinterested intonation had zero signs of a question.

“Autographs~”

Kokichi heard a tired sigh in response to his enthusiastic voice.

“I don’t give them. Now please, leave.”

“Wait-wait, I don’t need _your_ autograph, Amami-chan,” Ouma explained before the owner of the house had the time to hang up. “I just thought you’d want _mine_ , as in the ‘person’s who’ll end that disgusting game’. You sure you don’t want it?”

The speaker went silent for a while, but soon enough there was a jingle as the lock on the gate snapped open. Kokichi smiled to himself, pushed the gate door and headed for the front entrance of the house.

Standing at the doorway in faded jeans, a wrinkled t-shirt, with his rings, bracelets and other accessories off, Rantaro looked far less stylish than he used to on TV. His gaze seemed a lot more tired and emotionally detached too.

Yet, once he looked at Ouma, he frowned.

“Are you.. still in high school?”

“Oh, this?” Kokichi touched the sleeve of his school uniform. “It’s just kinda neat, I dunno. Helps to mess with people’s heads too: no one ever sees anything coming from minors, y’know?”

Seeing Rantaro’s stiff face and hearing no reply, Ouma sighed.

“They’re sick bastards, but they only consider applicants who officially come of age by the start of the game. If I’d ever gone to high school, I guess I’d have graduated last spring. Do I pass now, Amami-chan?”

“How did you find the address?” From how Rantaro moved on with the topic, Kokichi understood that he was pretty much satisfied with the previous answer. “It was supposed to be classified.”

“Nothing’s classified if it’s on the Team Danganronpa main server,” Ouma shrugged. “Hey, can I come in already? Not sure they don’t have some surveillance of this place to keep you in check.”

With a quiet sigh, Amami let Kokichi in, closed the front door behind him, and lead the way to the living room.

“I don’t think they’d see any purpose in doing that. It’s not like I know something other people don’t,” he entered the room, set on the sofa and pointed at the armchair with his chin. “It would’ve been the other way round if they hadn’t given me my memory back. But if there’re survivors, they always do.”

“And? How does it feel?” Ouma asked after he sank into the armchair right across the sofa and leaned forward. He wasn’t even trying to tone down his interest. “Is it like having legit two personalities??”

“It’s like having _none_ ,” Amami replied, his voice flat and exhausted.

“Hmm? But you have both pre-game and in-game memories now,” Kokichi pressed on.

Letting out yet another sigh, Rantaro propped his elbows against the knees, closed his eyes and covered his forehead with the left palm.

“Because there’s the weirdest mess of thoughts and facts in my head. And absolutely _no_ line in between 'em. I don’t even know what’s ‘me’ and what’s not anymore. Just as I don’t know what’s right or wrong.”

“You did let me in once I told you about destroying the game though,” Ouma recalled. “So I’d say you _know_ what ‘wrong’ is.”

Still keeping his face covered, Amami stayed silent for a while.

“What if I’m just putting up an act here to get the info from you and contact the production team later?”

Ouma laughed at his words.

“I can tell when someone’s lying, Amami-chan. And you haven’t been doing it until that last dumb line.”

Rantaro took his hand off his face and looked Kokichi in the eye.

“Why are you so sure it’s safe to talk to me?”

In return, Ouma’s voice went deadly serious.

“Cuz you know well that if the game has two survivors left, one of them is the participant who’ll be killed off next season.”

“...I applied for the show," Amami said with his eyes cast down. "I didn’t think I’d survive anyway.”

“But you want to survive now that you’ve been through the game,” Kokichi said, as if he knew it without a shadow of a doubt. “You want to end it. Just like I do. That’s why you let me in.”

After remaining silent for about a minute, Rantaro exhaled heavily and then gave out a weak laugh.

“The sickest part of it all is that they erase that death-craving part of your memory first off,” he said in a low voice. “A bunch of suicidal psychos, who’d all be ecstatic to finally get back the freedom over their own lives, aren’t the best choice for an entertaining broadcast. So even though almost everyone who applies for the show initially wants to die, most of 'em have the will _to live_ implanted in their heads. All just so that they could die while still trying to survive, for the fun of the viewers.”

That wasn’t news to Ouma. After all the files he’d read, there was little about the game he didn’t know. Yet, he didn’t want to interrupt Amami just yet.

“My parents signed me up for the game after I’d killed my sister. An accident, but it was my fault it happened. So just as I blamed myself, they blamed me too.” He stated it all flatly, then tapped his right temple with the index and middle fingers. “With the health state sensor in here, I couldn’t do anything even if I found a resolve to. _No one_ can now: I read online about a group of young adults, who got their hands on some illegal meds. They had an ambulance team storm the place 15 minutes after taking huge dozes, got a crazy bill for care they didn’t want to get and a fine for breaking the law,” he shut his eyes. “Honestly, I was relieved when I saw the invitation letter from the show.”

With his eyes still half-closed, Rantaro smiled wryly.

“But everything about it is just.. so drenched in hypocrisy. Memory altering technology could’ve been used for mental rehabs instead of empowering this madness. It’s all as if the game’s _intended_ to be the last resort for the people, who want to throw their lives away but aren’t allowed to by all these dumb utopian regulations.”

“Well, they do call the entire process ‘life-recycling’ in e-papers, so I’m pretty sure that’s how it is,” Kokichi shrugged. “The company’s more than okay with this game being one of the few things that keeps the world entertained and motivated. They prolly even see it as sacrificing fewer people for the wellbeing of the others or something.”

Amami didn’t reply but Ouma noticed his jaw become stiff and decided to change the topic.

“Anyways, you got that implanted ‘will to live’ erased when you got your memory back, no?”

“They don’t erase anything,” Rantaro replied with a sniff. “They don’t care about the mess they create in others’ heads. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I killed myself now: it’d be even easier to introduce a new character in the next game.”

“Hey now, you were pretty popular, Amami-chan,” Kokichi smirked. “I’m sure they care, even if only about the ratings.”

Rantaro gave him a crooked smile.

“My sensor’s still deactivated.”

“...Yeah, here I thought I can’t despise this game more than I already did.”

“I guess that’s why the few previous survivors never appeared on screen.” Amami’s look became more serious. “But that’s exactly what _I’m_ gonna do.”

“Heh, sounds good! You got a plan?”

Ouma got an uncertain shrug of the shoulders in response.

“I’ll lose my memory once again, so there isn’t much I can do. They said there’ll be some way to leave my in-game self a message, though. I don’t know how exactly or what info I’ll be allowed to leave, or will they review it-..”

“Sure they will,” Kokichi scoffed. “The first thing they started to rant about, after we agreed that I’ll enter the game with my own memories, was how I’ll immediately get a ‘penalty’ if I disclose any information about the game.”

Rantaro stared at him with round eyes.

“You.. what?”

“Ah, never mentioned it? I made it clear for them that they’d never come up with a more intriguing character than the original me,” Ouma grinned. “Doesn’t mean I’ll be able to act in the open, though. More like, the other way around: I’ll have to tone down almost everything I say or do and will most likely be hated by everyone else. But if it means saving them and stopping the game, I’m in.”

After finishing, Kokichi took out his cell phone.

“Alright, so, I’ve got some ideas on that ‘message to self’ or whatever. Look here,” he handed his phone with an opened image viewer to Amami.

Surprised, if not shocked, Rantaro flipped through a couple of detailed drawings.

“These are.. the labs for the next game, right? But how-...”

“Main server, Amami-chan, it’s all there. And yup to your first question - these are the blueprints. Found yours yet?”

At that very moment, Rantaro flipped the image with the note ‘Assassin’ in the corner and saw the one with the word ‘Survivor’. He couldn't stifle a disappointed laugh.

“So that's what they came up with, huh?”

“Very creative, I know,” Ouma nodded. “Though, what would you expect from the guys who’ve had the same villain for 52 games straight? It’s surprising how they still manage to come up with a new mastermind every time.”

Agreeing, in a manner, Amami shrugged again.

“Anyways.” Kokichi reached for the phone and tapped in the center, zooming in. “See this thing?”

Rantaro found a small specifying note near some ambiguous detail on his lab’s scheme.

“‘Vault’?” he looked up. “You think whatever message they let me leave will be placed there?”

“It’s a vault for something, right? And it’s in your lab. So, I’m guessing that along with letting you leave a message they can ask you to give the vault a combination using these,” he pointed at the two circles with various signs and then looked Rantaro in the eye. “And I wanna know that combination.”

Amami raised an eyebrow.

“Why would you need to see my message? You said you’ll have your memories left as they are.”

“You sure _you_ ’ll be able to see it?” Kokichi chuckled. “When do you think you’ll be asked to set a password?”

Having put two and two together, Rantaro furrowed his brow.

“Before the game, obviously,” Ouma answered his own question. “After that, they can either leave a hint to help you remember it or…” he made a pause for a dramatic effect, “they can trick you with this farce from the very start, making you _believe_ you’ll be able to see the message. But you won’t, cuz you’ll have no idea what the password is,” he snapped his fingers. “That’s where I come in.”

For a while, Amami was contemplating whether to take the risk or not. After he couldn’t spot any flaws in Kokichi’s logic, he closed his eyes, surrendering.

“Name it.”

“Huh?”

“The combination. You name it and I’ll set the password to it if they ask me to.”

As if to test Rantaro’s resolve, Ouma waited for a few seconds. Then he took his phone back and started to edit the image.

“Like this,” he showed Rantaro two signs, now circled out. “But if they change the code to numbers or something, it’s your call. Just lemme know what you set it to ASAP, ok, Amami-chan?”

“How do I-..?”

“Get in touch with me, right.” Kokichi started tapping on the phone again. “Just sent you a message in Line along with that pic. They had your ID, sorry,” he said, anticipating Rantaro’s another question. Yet, Amami wasn’t even going to ask: he already accepted the fact that Ouma had the entire Team DR’s database downloaded straight to his brain.

“So, what’s _your_ plan then?”

“Eh? You mean, how I plan to destroy the game?” Kokichi smirked. “I’ll figure it out on the go. It’s not like I can devise a plan from the outside anyway.”

“..And it’s definitely not that you don’t trust me enough to let me in on the strategy?”

Ouma grinned again.

“Doubt is basically a key to beating this game. But hey, should I tell it to the Ultimate Survivor himself?”

Amami remained serious.

“No worries, I wouldn’t be here to make this suggestion if I didn’t trust you less than 80%.” Kokichi put his both hands on the armrests, then sprang up to his feet and headed to the exit. “Welp, gotta go now. It was really nice talking to you, Amami-ch-...”

“Can I ask, who are you doing this for?”

Rantaro was still sitting on the sofa with his eyes fixed on something invisible in the air in front of him. When Ouma, who was already about to leave the room, stopped, he continued.

“You aren’t taking such a risk for mine or everybody else’s good. Who is it for then?”

*** 

“Ouma-kun. Ouma-kun!”

Kokichi opened his eyes and sat up so quick, Shuuichi had to immediately dodge to avoid hurting him with the hat’s vizor.

“Woah! Saihara-chan, what’re doing here?”

Shuuichi blinked.

“This is _my_ apartment, Ouma-kun.”

“Oh?” Kokichi looked around to confirm that the room he was in and the bed he was lying on weren’t actually his own. “Yup. You’re right.”

Looking more than slightly concerned, Saihara furrowed his brow.

“Did something happen?”

“Should I leave?” Ouma answered with another question.

“N-no! It’s just...” Shuuichi was too confused to notice Kokichi enjoy the response he just shot. “I know I gave you the key myself and you‘re free to use it whenever. I mean-..”

“You mean you gave it to me for emergency cases, and now you’re worried why I’m here,” Ouma finished his friend’s thought. ”This is actually sweet, Saihara-chan! But no, nothing serious. Just a small game of tag with a police officer, who managed to clobber me with his tonfa once. Or maybe twice.” He rubbed the top of his head. “...Well, maybe a couple more times, cuz I honestly don’t remember how I even got here and when I passed out on your bed. Sorry.”

Shuuichi’s look became even more troubled. He left his school bag on the floor near the bed and headed to the kitchen. When he got back, he was holding an ice pack.

“Woah, do you have those ready just for your high-maintenance buddy here, really??”

“I don’t know what to do if it’s a concussion,” Saihara either purposely ignored Kokichi’s words or was too anxious to even hear them. He crouched near the bed and put the ice pack on top of Ouma's head. “Just hold it to your head for now, ok? I’ll look up some information online.”

Shuuichi was indeed going to head toward his desk; out of habit, he had already switched on both the lamp and the computer right after he entered the room. But Kokichi stopped him from standing up by pulling at the sleeve of his first year high school uniform blazer.

“Hey, I’m totes fine! If it were a concussion, I woulda been hurling now,” he smirked, looking at his friend's face. “But it’s really nice to see you so worried about me, Saihara-chan, y’know?”

Even if Shuuichi actually tried to not appear flustered, he wasn’t successful.

“..You sure you’re okay?”

“Yup!” Kokichi stretched out his arm and took the hat off Shuuichi’s head. “If anything, _you_ look a lot more exhausted than me.”

Saihara scratched the back of his head, ruffling the dark blueish hair.

“Yeah, I was helping at the precinct after school. They got a new case, so...”

Sitting on the bed, Ouma crossed his legs and leaned forward, the ice pack gracefully balancing on his head.

“Woah! It’s been a long time since your last case, congrats!” he gave Shuuichi a sincere pat on the shoulder. “Something interesting?”

Saihara primed his lips.

“...No, not really. It’s just another lost animal case. I don’t have all the details yet, but it doesn’t look like a tough one.”

“Nothing’s tough when the best teen detective’s on the job, right?”

“I’m just helping, Ouma-kun,” Shuuichi sighed. “It’s not that spec-..”

“Yeah-yeah, ‘nothing special’, as always,” Kokichi finished. “They’d better keep their hands on you, though. Cuz you’re the only one who’ll be able to catch me one day.”

“You were almost caught _today_ ,” Saihara reminded him with a sheepish smile.

“Welp, my bad, gotta train more.” Having said that, Ouma suddenly remembered something and brought his face closer to Shuuichi’s. “Hey, right, training! Did you manage to get that thing?”

Saihara closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“You’re still on it, Ouma-kun?”

“What do you mean ‘still’?” Kokichi raised his index finger to make the next statement look and feel as serious as possible. “Lockpicking is one of the most important skills anyone can have!”

Knowing his friend’s relentless nature, Shuuichi already reached for his bag and started searching for something inside.

“Yes, yes,” it was hardly the first time he heard the phrase. “I just don’t understand why it should be this th-..”

He didn’t even finish. The moment Saihara pulled the thing he was searching for out of the bag, Ouma snatched it and

_*Clack*_

“O-ouma-kun! What have you-..”

“Neeheehee~” with his left wrist now handcuffed to Shuuichi’s right, Kokichi sneered. “Sorry, Saihara-chan. But it’ll be more realistic his way.”

“I don’t even have the key!”

“Hey, you doubt my skills?” Ouma took out two needles out of his pocket.

“You’ve said you need to _train_. That means you aren't good in lockpicking them.”

“Na-ah, Saihara-chan,” Ouma grinned innocently. “I just never tried at all!~”

Somehow, this phrase didn’t make Saihara feel any better.

~~~

With a loud sigh, Kokichi put both needles aside.

“I’m beat.”

Sitting next to him on the bed, Shuuichi felt his right hand being pulled up, as Ouma lied flat on his back. The ice pack was left abandoned on the floor long ago.

“Ouma-kun, you can’t just give up when we’re in a situation like this.”

“It’s been almost two hours,” Kokichi moaned. “If only I could use my both hands and not one, I woulda picked it already.”

“The entire point of handcuffs is that _neither_ of your hands are free,” Saihara muttered. “What are you suggesting then?”

“What time is it?”

As uncomfortable as it was, Shuuichi started trying to get his cell phone out of the pants’ right pocket with his left hand.

“Lemme get it for you,” and before Saihara had the time to protest, Kokichi already let his right hand slip into his friend’s pocket to pull out the phone. “Here.”

“..Thanks,” Shuuichi looked down at the lock screen. “It’s 8:20.”

“Then I suggest having a nap.”

“Wh-.. Huh??”

“Hey, even with the amounts of energy _I_ have, I still need to recharge. C’mon, I’m sure I’ll nail the lock after a short nap.”

Having said that, Ouma put his right hand under the back of his head and closed his eyes.

Saihara looked at his friend’s peaceful face for a while and then turned back to his phone.

“It says here that if you’ve got a concussion, you shouldn’t sleep,” he said while scrolling through some medical article in the browser.

“I already did when I came here, right?” Kokichi responded lazily.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re-..”

Ouma stretched out his right arm, snatched the phone and put it on the bed to the right of himself.

“I’m fine, you worrywart. Relax.”

With a sigh, Shuuichi slid down a little and lied flat on the bed next to Ouma. Although he was somewhat tired after the day’s routine, he didn’t feel like falling asleep at all. And since Kokichi took his phone, he found himself simply staring into the ceiling, lighted by the desktop lamp.

“Something wrong?” Ouma, who was still not asleep, asked him out of the blue.

“Yeah, my hand’s handcuffed to yours,” Saihara chuckled.

“Nah, you’ve been outta sorts since you came back home.”

“...You said you needed a nap.”

“I also said ‘relax’, and you’re still so tense I feel it through the handcuffs,” Kokichi brushed off his friend's attempt to change the topic.

“I’m relaxed, it’s just…”

After taking a deep breath, Shuuichi exhaled heavily and closed his eyes.

“You ever feel.. bored?”

Ouma gave out a laugh.

“Yeah, every day.”

Surprised, Saihara turned his head to the right, but Kokichi’s eyes were still shut as he added:

“Life’s boring if you don’t find the ways to enjoy it yourself. That’s why I’m always out there looking for 'em.”

“And you.. never get discouraged?”

A smirk appeared on Ouma’s lips.

“Well, I _do_ find them sometimes. So nope.”

Shuuichi turned his gaze back to the ceiling.

“Aren’t you doing the same by helping at the precinct?” Kokichi asked after a short pause.

“I guess?” Saihara exhaled again. “I mean, I was excited when I just started out. I thought it’d be really fun to help by solving puzzles and unraveling smart tricks...”

He stayed silent for a while, not knowing if he should continue.

“It turned out to be pretty boring, though,” Shuuichi didn’t even realize when he started talking again. “I wonder, if it ever wasn’t. If those ‘smart tricks’ were a thing in the past at all. There’s hardly any serious work. I know I shouldn’t be sad about it..” he closed his eyes, “..but I feel like I am. I wish there were real mysteries a detective had to solve. Not some lost animal or marital infidelity stuff. I wish there was something more complex, more meaningful, and-..”

“Graver?” Kokichi asked, his voice flat.

Saihara could feel Ouma’s attitude to the thoughts he just voiced in that one word’s intonation alone. That’s when he realized he’d said too much and had to back out.

“...No, not like that. Just something.. more demanding, I guess. So that I could feel that I’ve given it my all.”

Fearing that Ouma heard enough of his thoughts to condemn him, Shuuichi was nervously waiting for a response.

“Welp, just give me a couple more years, and you’ll have a veeery demanding work!” Kokichi’s voice went back to normal and Saihara heaved a discreet sigh of relief.

At the next moment, Ouma turned over to his left side and, by tugging at his friend’s right hand, made Shuuichi lie on the side to face him.

“My tricks will run you off your legs,” he sneered. “It’ll be fun, just you wait. You trust my talents, right?”

In his mind, Saihara was desperately trying to fight the abashment that the unexpected proximity pinned him down with.

“Yeah,” he smiled and lifted his handcuffed hand. “I will trust them, if you fix this, Ouma-kun.”

“Sure I will! Oh, and,” Kokichi’s lips curled in a sly smile and his voice went lower, “how about one more favor to thank me?”

“H-huh?”

Saihara wasn’t even able to formulate a decent question because of how close Ouma’s face was to his own.

“...Ouma..-kun?”

Still smiling, Kokichi put his index finger on Shuuichi’s lips.

“There,” he immediately put the finger away. “Once I free our hands, you start calling me by my _name_. Deal?”

“You mean..‘Kokichi-kun’?” Saihara blinked.

“You can drop the ‘kun’ stuff too.”

Shuuichi couldn’t stifle a laugh.

“Will _you_ finally drop the ‘chan’ for me then?”

“Hmmm,” Ouma pretended to seriously consider the option before brushing it off. “Nope. But I can make it ‘Shuu-chan’, what do you think?”

“I think I’m fine with how it is now, thank you.”

“Thought so,” Kokichi reached for his needles. “Okay then, recharge complete. I’m fired up now, so here we go again!”

 ***

 “...Are you doing it for family?”

Still standing near the door of Rantaro’s living room, Ouma shook his head.

“Never had a family, Amami-chan. And you know well that family isn't always a good thing anyway.”

Kokichi paused for a while, guessing whether Rantaro would press for details if he didn't answer on his own.

“It’s for an old friend,” he said at last and gave out a bitter chuckle. “Now that I think of it, I don’t really know if _he_ ever considered me a friend and trusted me enough to share all of his thoughts. But to me, he's still the closest person I’ve ever had.”

Rantaro turned his head to the right to face Ouma.

“And you’re still going to risk everything for a bond you no longer have?”

“Hey, I love risk for the sake of risk,” Kokichi grinned. “But yeah, I'm getting him out and ending the show even if that means he’ll hate me afterwards. I’m not letting him die in that place,” he mostly muttered the last phrase to himself and then smiled at Amami. “Is the interview over yet, huh?”

Something in Ouma’s voice made Rantaro feel he could actually trust his words. For the first time in a long while, he let out a relaxed laugh.

“If I'm not mistaken, you promised me an autograph.”

“Oh, you actually remembered? I’m flattered, Amami-chan!” Kokichi smirked. “But y’know, let’s crush that game first. After we make it out alive, you’re the first person I’m giving it to, swear.”

“And what about your ‘old friend’?”

"He’s got an entire apartment of stuff I trained my lockpicking skills on,” Ouma answered with a somewhat forced snicker. “Trust me, that's the best ‘inscribed copy’ I can leave behind.”


End file.
